Photo printing on R300 is excellent. Ink is expensive (6 cartridges) and if one quits the printer won't work.
CD/DVD printing is dull looking compared to a label. Two passes through the printer inproves the color depth, but reduces any transparent effects so avoid them. Mine will not print quite DEAD center, but it's not off by that much.

John

I read that there is a class action suit against Epson because their ink cartridges quit with a fair amount of ink left in them. It seems these printers look for a chip in the cartridge to ensure that its Epson brand and won’t use any other brand replacement cartridge. Epson claims it leaves ink in the cartridge to protect the heads but customers complain that it is a scam to lock them into buying more of their expensive ink more often. I’ve held off buying a DVD printer until other manufacturers start making them. My impression of the whole affair is that Epson is ripping its customers off. I would be interested in what the Epson owners here think since you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. ;-)

~jr

I'm very happy with the R300 I bought a couple of months ago. It prints my DVDs perfectly and compared to printing labels, I feel it's cheaper.
Randy

read that there is a class action suit against Epson because their ink cartridges quit with a fair amount of ink left in them. It seems these printers look for a chip in the cartridge to ensure that its Epson brand and won’t use any other brand replacement cartridge. Epson claims it leaves ink in the cartridge to protect the heads but customers complain that it is a scam to lock them into buying more of their expensive ink more often. I’ve held off buying a DVD printer until other manufacturers start making them. My impression of the whole affair is that Epson is ripping its customers off. I would be interested in what the Epson owners here think since you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. ;-)

~jr
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They can do what they please for now because there is little competition. I don't trust big business very much especially with the current administration's attitude.

For example. Why is Canon not allowed to sell their CD/DVD printers in the United States? I was interested in them when I bought the Epson R300, but I found out that they (for some reason) are not allowed to be sold in the US.
TDK also makes an inexpensive thermal printer in Europe which apparently works very well for text and simple graphics, but is not available in the US. Only the crappy Casio models are avalable here.

John

JohnnyRoy,

I've got the Epson Stylus Photo 900, which I'm generally pleased with. I've used up a couple of ink cartridges thus far, and didn't get the impression that the cartridges quit prematurely -- but I will certainly take a closer look next time, thanks to your post.

G

I have the Epson 900 as well, I would try to find one of those if at all possible, mainly becasue there are only 2 cartridges to replace not 6! That can get very costly over time. I know there are cartridges out there that are not manufactured by epson that will work and are chaeper, but they will ruin your print heads over time and void your warranty.

Thanks for the feedback. But I still have two questions: 1) does it print a picture evenly for easy cutting (very useful when making DVD covers); and 2) why buy the R300 when the R200 is $80 cheaper and the only difference is the memory card slots (that I know of no one who uses)?
Thanks for any help!

Well I just got the R200 for just that reason - why spend more for the card reading ability of the R300 when it's of no greater value to me.
Very pleased with the printing results - photos are truly excellent - and print very straight ;-)
I bought it purely for photos, DVD covers and DVD printing. The on-disc printing works well - as someone has already pointed out, it is maybe a little washed out compared to glossy paper, but it still looks very professional and is surprisingly durable; something I was concerned about given the water soluble nature of inkjet inks.
The ink does appear to be going fast, though - and it is expensive; To refill with a full set of Epson cartridges would cost the same as buying the printer itself, which is ludicrous, shameful and would suggest a cynical profiteering on a massive scale by such printer manufacturers.

I print DVD covers on 8.5 X 14 paper with crop marks. Works for me. Maybe because I had a ton of legal paper to use.

The R300 would be a waste of money for printing photos. The cost of consumables is prohibitive. If you need it, buy it for its dubious disc printing ability only.

If you want to buy a photo printer, there are lots of printers to choose from with lower ink costs especially since you can buy cheaper generic inks and only two cartridges to boot. I use my Epson 980 for printing DVD jackets. If you are having trouble with DVD jacket sizes be aware that A4 photo paper is the better choice. The problem is that it is expensive and not widely available for a reasonable price. What I do is to make my DVD jacket 7.25" x 11" then choose a paper setting with my Epson printer which is "Maximum" and "Centered". I ignore the warning message and it prints almost to the edges of the paper. The end result is a pretty good fit.

John

Regarding Epson printers stopping printing before the ink cartridges are actually empty, do a Google search on "Epson chip resetters". These devices allow you to reset the chip in many Epson ink cartridges so the printer will think they are full (and resume printing).

Page #28 of the May 2004 Consumer Reports indicated they got 11 to 50% more good quality photos after resetting the ink cartridge chips.

--Rob

p.s. I'm using the Epson Stylus Photo 900 for DVD printing. I works great, but be aware that it loads DVD/CDs from the rear, so you'll need to be able to reach behind the printer to slide them in.

I've got the Epson Photo 900 and I bought a set of cartridges with it which turned out to be non Epson. Well, they didn't print quite as well and they did clog up from time to time requiring head cleaning so the small amount I saved on the cost of the cartridges I probably wasted in cleaning the heads.

Sorry but I don't get all the fuss over printing DVDs, my clients are pretty pleased that they can have any sort of printing on them, OK it doesn't look as good as photo paper, still looks better than most of the screen printed ones I've seen. Only thing that seems to give a good result is thermal transfer and apart from the cost of the printer the cost per DVD for film is around $0.50. Strangely enough the clients seem more interested in the video on the DVD than the printing.

I'll have to try the "A4" route. . . when I run out of my pile of 8.5 x 14

I see "Office Depot" carries it here>>

http://www.officedepot.com/txtSearchDD.do?searchTxt=paper&refine_search=on&previous_query=A4+A4

I don't understand why people are using A4 size paper for printing DVD covers. All the DVD covers I've ever seen are only 7.127" X 10.75". I've been printing them on HP's "Brochure and Flyer Paper, Gloss" (8.5 X 11) and it works perfectly!

J--